


The Prince of Gallows and the White Raven

by skylights22



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brief appearance by centaurs, Drarry, Durmstrang, F/M, Gen, Gore, Grief, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Slash, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Slash, The frickin' Malfoys are OC as hell, Triwizard Tournament, sort of a fix-it fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2018-09-15 11:45:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9233714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skylights22/pseuds/skylights22
Summary: "Grim is the doom of norns." When a young boy from Durmstrang is found to be their son, the Potters are not the only ones convinced of miracles, but darkness treads on his heels and no matter whom he comes to love, or who loves him, his Fate is decided.Slash/gore HPDM





	1. A Veil of Truths

**Author's Note:**

> Original fic posted on fanfiction.net. I'm leaving it there in all its ratty goodness if you want spoilers (or a look at my other fics) (and super cringey goth angst) but this is maaaaaaaaasively reedited because... I don't know. I look at my past writing self and go "Ha! You fool! You know nothing!" so....

Through the eye of god we see no evil

It is but a veil of truths

We seek the all-seeing

One with the tongue of Jörmungandr

And the eye of Woden approaches

Born as the seventh month dies

He will be touched

By a son of Fenrir

And by black Garmr

He will die and no one will save him

On the night of the last moon

His enemy will come

Midgard will be drenched in his salts

A power the Dark Lord knows not

Resides in the heart of man

One to control and one to obey

One to die so the other may live

Born as the seventh month dies

A hero will walk through the worlds

Retrieve Huginn’s store

Seek out the völva on the shore

All is but a veil of truths

May Thor receive you

May Woden own you.

 

o.O.o

 

**the FUTURE . . .**

 

Draco studied slumbering features.

His hand was above the linen tucked into his sides, curved to expose that vulnerable crease of elbow. A needle delved into vein. A tube of amber liquid nestled there, snaking down the uniform line. This small bag of liquid was all that proved he was alive. The steady metronome drip showed something inside this statue drank. The skin was hardened bone. They could warm his limbs well enough to shift him, but there was no heartbeat, no blood flow, nothing but the Golden Elixir absorbed at one mL every hour, forty-seven minutes, and thirty-six seconds.

It had been years since those lashes had fluttered. His hair was a meter thicker, fanning the pillow like petroleum. They let that grow, though they shaved his face, clipped his nails. It was comforting to see the passage of time, to know something within him moved where they could not see or detect.

Somewhere in the space between Dead and Not-Dead, there was a promise. Draco had ravaged himself with the rights and wrongs of it. He’d shocked himself to learn the amount he could endure. Things that he was sure would break him passed into mornings, one after the other, with him awake and breathing. The things he couldn’t stand to name - didn’t know how to name - just were. 

He was just a man visiting an infirmary room. 

It was still there under the surface, oblique to him. The impotent rage. The carcass of defeat and abandonment that just wouldn’t go down. If he thought about it, the grief would surge. It would say: there were so many things he wanted to say, wanted to tell him, to confess, and rave, and no matter how _wrong_ this was - him, like this - it didn’t get better. It didn’t do anything other than _be_ and Draco _hated_ that. He hated it with an intensity he didn’t think he could feel and not split open. Enough to swallow sour bile every time he dared to do anything as outrageous as _think about it_.

They forced the needle into his calcified flesh. He was pale and waxy on that bed. Stupid fairy-tale hair, crisp corners in his linens, and Draco had dreams that went like this:

Draco tore through thorns, climbed steps in velvet dust, and returned life to those features. At first it was a kiss, but he realized he was offering petals from his heart. Paring off medallions. Blood and oil painted his lips red. It hurt as he fed him. He’d push the last circle of heart into his mouth and imagine the lashes flutter. 

He’d wake up broken, his real heart high in his own throat, and crying like you learn to do after years of being alone. With hushed reverence. 

The Draco he was before did not know it was possible to manage pain, like life was a loan you somehow managed to squander. That it could lurk in and steal your comfort but that one could also tidy it away, allot it corners, and pay its interest, even if the debt itself was simply too large to contemplate.

That’s how it felt. Too large, gargantuan. He could never look at the whole. If he did, he lost himself in it. But even when he did that, the days kept coming. It’s not as if the world stopped because he was a mess. 

(And there was that small kernel of hope, that mL that dripped every hour, forty-seven minutes, and thirty-six seconds.)

That Draco that was sixteen was a different person at twenty-five. 

_Look what you’ve done to me_ , he told the boy. Too pretty even to breathe. 

He shook his head. In the deep and darkest part of himself, the one he can barely face, he wondered if the man he had become beside this bed was even capable of being loved by the boy who dreamed. 

 

o.O.o

 

**the PAST. . .**

 

It had not taken long after her marriage for Lily to get pregnant. She and her husband had both wanted to wait until after the war before trying a child, but her belly still grew. 

The birth was difficult, administered by Poppy Pomfrey during a thunderstorm at Malfoy manor. They had come to call on Narcissa, when Lily had gone into unexpected labor. The thunderstorm had disrupted the Floo connections, and it was impossible for Lily to apparate. However, Pomfrey was on hand, applying a tonic to her student’s colicky two month-old.

It was fortunate. Lily would not have survived. 

The pain was possessive, a demolition. It felt less like an extraction and more like a carnal tearing, as if the child itself had adhered to her uterine wall and was endeavoring to take half of her with him on the way out. James took her hand, let her crack the bones in his fingers, and made promises like prayers.

Poppy, Severus, and Narcissa eventually pulled out a boy, premature and struggling to breath. It was Severus who sewed her back up, she too weak to flinch around the lesser pain of the needle and hands inside her, scooping up and rearranging organs. He wrapped the wound and plied her with replenishing potions until she drifted into uneasy unconsciousness. 

James didn’t leave his wife’s side while her pulse fluttered in and out. Young Harry had his own trouble surviving the night, but come morning, he latched into Narcissa’s breast with weak fumbles. Within a week, he was presented to his weary parents and godparents. 

“Great tits of Morrian, little one,” Sirius exclaimed as he nestled the boy in his arms. “You’ll be a hell raiser.”

“It’s not his fault,” Remus told him, peering into the swaddling. So tiny. And ugly. “You’ll be a fighter, just like your mother.”

“Well, Lily’s a hell raiser too,” Sirius claimed, angling the bundle from his friend. 

“Lily will crawl out this bed and _bite_ you if you don’t give her her baby,” said the mother. 

The threat undermined somewhat by how weakly she grasped the empty air, Sirius nevertheless deposited the babe into her arms

“He’s so _small_ ,” Peter whispered, eyes wide, and Sirius clasped his shoulder. 

Lily’s breath caught. She swallowed with a click and peered at the flushed, gummy face beneath the cotton. 

“Hi,” she whispered. Then, she coughed a little, sounding much more like herself. “You absolute shit. You have your father’s drama.” She patted the blanket, touched his wisps of dark dark hair with her thumb. He blinked blearily, grizzled, so weak and precious and terrible that Lily felt she might die from it all. 

James looked punch drunk, staring down at this tiny thing with eyes that had gotten an hours sleep out of every ten. 

Lily exchanged a glance with him. 

We _made_ this. How was this not crazy? People have been doing this since forever. How have they not gone insane? 

It was with pride and disbelief that they welcomed their son into the world. 

That was the birth of Harry James Potter. 

Fifteen months later, Harry died.

 

.o0o.

 

These order of events occurred:

 

On the 31st of October 1981, James and Lily left their son under the Fidelus ward with Peter Pettigrew.

At 15:36, they reinforced the Order members at Belfast. 

At 19:59, Sirius Black is treated for a dismemberment hex at Saint Mungos. Lily and James reported minimal injuries. 

At 23:40, the Potters have been debriefed. James elected to stay at the hospital with Sirius. Lily returned home alone. 

 

These were the facts: 

 

The house was gone. Like a cosmic hand pinched it up from existence, leaving only the foundation stones.

Nothing and no one was recovered. 

There was a hole in history where the Dark Lord Voldemort disappeared after that night. His circle collapsed and imploded like the weight around a dead star. 

Muggles in the town over sang as they skipped to the next house on the block. Trails of trick-or-treat shadowed Harry Potter’s departure from the world.

 

**and the PRESENT...**


	2. Konstaninos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just set-up

_You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore._

_This city will always pursue you. You will walk_

_the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods,_

_will turn gray in these same houses._

_You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:_

_there is no ship for you, there is no road._

_As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,_

_you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world._

~ _Konstaninos_ , Petrou Kavafis 

 

 

James finished his report. The scanning charm whipped off its last string on the morphemic rune bell. Nacreous lines gleamed frugally in Scotland’s muggy light. The structure, deconstructing the protean ward to its variable dimensions and parts, looked like so many layers of pearly petticoats in a constant state of _flounce_. Constantly smoothing and adjusting its layers as well as twirling about, it was affectionately lively for a ward, even for one as old as Hogwarts. The model, roughly the size of James’ hand with fingers spread, collapsed into a smaller discus at a wave of his wand. He burned a simplified copy onto two floating sheets of parchment. One was sent off into the woods for Bane, and the second flew off to the Deputy Headmistress’ office. James collected the model into an old snuff box which then fell into his breast pocket.

James turned back towards the castle. Though it wasn’t raining, moisture condensed on his glasses, and his hair, which had thinned only a little since he was a schoolboy, was effected even more to the likeness of a particularly baffled chicken. It was a climb up sprawling hills through soggy grasses. It being September, there was a nip to the finely spread mist. Since James had taken up practice in London, he’d not had much chance to visit outdoors in the Highlands. It was like he remembered, though he was embarrassed to admit he might be a _little_ out of practice bounding over such unrestricted wilderness. 

At the top of the stone steps laid into the steepness of the hill, Sirius was leaning against an old column. He made a flash of white teeth as he saw James huffing.

James kindly flipped him off. 

The crooked clove cigarette clamped between his friend’s teeth had a slender grey wisp. Sirius looked good. That scrappy maudlin air that gave him a short temper and offensive handsomeness in their youth was gone. Though Sirius would never look _tamed_ , in its place was the sated happiness of the well-loved. 

As he moved, Sirius’ metal leg clunked. James was surprised he didn’t have his trouser leg pulled up to show it off but then it was dismally damp today. Sirius bitched whenever he got rust in it. 

Because everyone in their right mind was terrified of McGonagall, Sirius stamped out the fag before they entered. He coat flapped like a cardinal when he turned. Eight years in the Department of Recreation, and he still hadn’t abandoned the drama of a grizzled auror. Meanwhile, his husband, who actually was an auror, wore argyle and oatmeal cardigans. It was a travesty. 

They chatted amicably up until they spotted Severus wending his way like a lone, long inkblot up from the stables. 

Sirius crowed, “Severly!” and proceeded to bound towards him with his arms thrown out ridiculously. 

“Oh Jesus,” the wizard muttered. As he and Lily were the only ones of their circle with muggle upbringing (and Lily didn’t use foul language as a habit), James had always found his expressions slightly amusing.

He hexed Sirius’ leg off before the man could reach him. Sirius shouted, managing to stay afoot until the leg, newly freed, kicked his backside. He fell with a yelp. Smothering giggles, James carefully wrangled the errant limb before it could hop away. It would be him hunting it after all while Sirius cast about moaning. Noting that it seemed like Sirius was stashing something in the hollow, he hoped it was something less stupid than a sandwich this time.

“Hallo, Severus,” James greeted. 

“Hand me my foot!” Sirius demanded from the ground and was ignored. 

Severus finished climbing the bank, suffering from no exertion as he wiped off his shoes. The Defense instructor was whipping post lean and so pale as to leave James vaguely concerned about his health. His robes were somber but impeccably put-together, his hair caught in an elegant clasp with a rather dangerous looking pin. Not the least of the man’s defenses, James was unsure how many of Severus’ daily items were in fact weapons in disguise. In addition to being their dueling instructor, Severus was an eminent potion’s master living on the edge of a forest full of poison. James was suspicious of his buttons. 

“Potter,” he greeted with a neutral tone that was practically warm for the wizard. 

“Prongs, don’t be a heel,” Sirius called, which nearly made James waver.

Severus’ black eyes glinted in reproach and James managed to endure. 

“The unicorns?” James asked him, referring to the bout of sickness that had overcome the herd. Hagrid had managed to sequester a few and while Lily was an amazing potioneer, she herself admitted she didn’t have Severus’ bad hand at elixirs. 

Severus nodded. 

“This is callus even for you, Sevvy,” Sirius said and James gave up.

He tossed Sirius the leg with a look of disgust. Sirius smiled shamelessly and affixed it, popping back up and brushing his robes. 

He gave Severus a saccharine smirk and a bow. “Shall we?”

After a look that very much so appeared to be contemplating increasingly embarrassing hexes, Severus strode inside. 

James despaired. 

As the familiar sounds of Sirius’ nonsensical flirtations and Severus’ rebuffs filled the corridor, James felt a sharp pang of nostalgia. It had been fourteen years since Lily accepted the position at Hogwarts, first for Muggle Studies then Potions when Severus filled the vacant Defense position. James set up his ward shop in Westminister shortly after. As heir to quite an abundant fortune, James had never considered going into trade of all things but the clockwork mechanics of warding kept him occupied in dark times. Since then, he’d worked in London and lived in Hogwarts and found a nice routine. 

Soon, he knew that routine would fall to bits. At Dumbledore’s behest, James had taken a holiday from his shop to attend to the castle’s security. Sirius was boarding for the duration of the school year, and where Sirius went, Remus followed. Even Lucius was taking residence in his townhouse in Hogsmeade, Narcissa too, and it felt so much like their motley group was getting together once more.

But, of course, it wasn’t everyone. 

Peter was gone. 

And James had lost some vital part of himself. He was a stranger in a older skin. 

James was suddenly, achingly relieved to catch Lily coming out of her classroom. 

“Wife!”

Lily gave him an austere look, but her eyes twinkled. Her hair was pulled up in a twist that exposed those delicious freckles on her neck. James wrapped his arms around her, careless of the scattered students, who were more or less accustomed to this, and kissed her soundly on the cheek.

Sirius pulled a face. “You two are nasty.” 

“Cut your hair,” Lily told him and locked her room. 

As he always did, Sirius twirled one ebony strand around his finger (it was smooth and far, far tamer than James’). He looked put-out. “What’s wrong with it?”

“You mean other than the fact that you’re thirty-seven?”

“Severus has his hair long,” Sirius whinged.

“Severus looks distinguished,” she said airily, breezing down the hall. 

James smirked and Sirius pouted. 

Severus hastened a step to speak with his old friend and while James and Sirius tagged behind. 

“When is Remus getting in?” James asked Sirius as they loped towards the field where the Durmstrang ship and the Beauxbaton carriage were organized to land before the banquet.

Sirius gave a shrug. “Yaxley’s got him on double shift.”

None of them much cared for the Auror Chief. They all knew Yaxley was the reason Remus hadn’t been promoted despite being senior on his team and a stellar record for trafficking arrests. He had a habit of making passive aggressive remarks about Remus’ missing days of the month

Up ahead, Lily pointedly turned up her nose before continuing talking to Severus. 

Sirius didn’t take the chance to gripe. He looked distracted. 

“He’s been very busy.” 

James felt some concern. Sirius was a tease and a bit of a diva. He took fervent delight in being as salacious and cheeky as possible, and consequentially, he rarely said anything of import concerning his personal affairs, especially when those affairs were cause him some emotional distress.

Were this anyone else, James thought the comment would indicate that the speaker was lonely. But this was Sirius. Sirius was so fiercely self-reliant that it took James six months to realize Sirius was cruising because his parents had thrown him out. He respected Remus’ commitment to his job. It was a job they all shared once. 

No, this was Sirius being worried about his husband.

“Busy?” James prodded, noticing that the conversation in front had stalled. 

A shadow passed over Sirius’ face. Then, it was gone, and he had the same devil-may-care grin as before.

“Yeah, you know how it is. Remy saves the day and Yucksley turns him into a drudge for a while because he can’t imagine someone actually being good at their jobs.”

James didn’t let it go. “What is he working on?”

Sirius quieted and slowed. “You know he can’t talk about that.”

“He’s not gone undercover has he?”

Sirius huffed and adopted a more sincere grin. He lugged an arm around James shoulders.

“Nah, nothing like that. Don’t worry about it. Just had a moment.”

Severus turned around serenely. “You?”

“I get them!” Sirius protested, clearly not picking up the sarcasm. 

They joined the rapidly pooling students on the lawn. They found a spot beside Lucius, who inclined his head with that aristocratic coolness that James had never managed to learn. 

Several screams of excitement heralded the Beauxbaton carriage. James thought it was less than majestic, like a gilded turnip tied to the tails of four absolutely feral equines. They landed in brawling stampede, the carriage bouncing precariously, before somehow, the mayhem smoothed itself out. They pulled to a stately halt and a moment of suspenseful silence fell before the door opened. 

James was glad he wasn’t the Headmaster or the Deputy Headmistress as he could spend the time gossiping with Lucius.

The French students were soon enfolded into the thoroughfare by the more aristocratic children, training in the social niceties of hosting. James watched with amusement before he chanced a glance at his godson 

The little nuisance was being both politely chivalrous and wildly unimpressed with the lot of them.

“Better keep on eye on Draco,” James chuckled.

Lily swung a glance before his eyes gleamed. “Always.”

Just as the noise level was beginning to get too out of hand, the Durmstrang ship plowed through the surface of the lake, erupting another set of cries. arrived on the lake, springing from water with a mighty surge. James would be hard-pressed to say which arrival was more flamboyant. 

“What a load of showboating,” Lily mumbled. 

“Lily, my dear, was that a pun?” Sirius asked archly. 

The ship rocked, the lake streaming over the deck. The sails unfurled and a magical wind bore the ship closer to shore. There was a flurry of activity, eclipsed as vague sounds in the distance, as boats lowered to the lake surface. Heavily coated figures shimmied down the rope ladders. The boats was charmed to lazily ferry their passengers to the dock, headed by a man with a particularly dastardly mustache. 

And the hullabaloo restarted. 

Sirius nudged James. “Prongs, that’s Krum.”

The eighteen year old was a sight, pale peach and a close-shaven head. His face was mashed, nose almost offensively mangled and ill-set, but despite the brutish appearance, he had a statuesque air that carried a maturity of being in limelight. 

James saw Draco’s bright blond head veering off in that direction. Lucius sighed with grim resignation. 

Dumbledore greeted Igor Karkaroff with the same grandfatherly sweetness he extended to Madame Maxime. The three principals could not be more ill-matched. Dumbledore was easily the shortest, a fact he seemed to find amusing. Karkaroff and Maxime were decked in furs, one dark sable and the other light ermine, one in leather and buckles and the other in silk paisley patterns. Dumbledore was in lilac and mittens. 

Well, they were his favorite mittens. 

Eventually, they managed to herd everyone inside for introductions and dinner. 

 

o.O.o

 

The boy slogged through the bilge. His back ached, and his hands and shoulders were raw. The bilge was distressingly dark and fetid. It was already night and he took a break to light the lamps. He threw himself on a barrel by one of the portholes for a breath of fresh air. 

He hadn’t been to the deck yet. He was sure Karkaroff had locked the hold, out of spite if nothing else, but the ship was turned so he could view the school. _Hogwarts_ crowned the top of a hill in a cradle of mountains. Her spires were fletched like long, lone conifers. The light that tumbled through the windows gave it an air of hospitality, a sharp contrast to the waning moonlight. It tasted and smelled so different. 

Dyre took a deep breath of Scotland through the porthole.

Dyre was a sharp end of a boy. His hair was hacked short, rudely mismanaged. His jerkin was plain, the fabric beneath that of dull muslin, loose hose currently hiked up to his thighs. His arms and legs were spindly, skin stretched tough and taut over the round knobs of bones and stringy musculature. His face, haggard with exhaustion, did not express his current age of sixteen. The most striking feature was a blind eye, split by a massive worming scar, that he normally kept under a black bandage. Beyond this, one could still make out a patrician nose and a sweet cupid’s bow above rough lips. Heavy eyebrows clashed with a delicate bone structure, leaving him straddling a borderline between pretty and piercing, if it weren’t for the scar.

Dyre closed his eyes, one iris dark and one dead and milky. A song drifted to the tip of his tongue. Comforted by the knowledge that he was alone, Dyre rested his head on the hull, drew up his knee, and sang. 

His was a strange warbling alto, though the pitch dove in and out of favor, lacking training but much loved. It echoed about the hull, strings of Old Danish. 

 

♪♬ “ _Drømte mig en drøm i nat/_

_om silke og ærlig pæl,/_

_Bar en dragt så let og glat_ _/_

_i solfaldets strålevæld/_

_-nu vågner den kla~re mo~r~gen_

_Til de unges flok jeg gik,/_

_jeg droges mod sang og dans./_

_Trøstigt mødte jeg hans blik/_

_og lagde min hånd i hans/_

_-nu vågner den kla~re mo~r~gen_

_“Alle de andre på os så,/_

_de smilede, og de lo./_

_Snart gik dansen helt i stå,/_

_der dansede kun vi to/_

_-nu vågner den kla~re mo~r~gen_

_Drømte mig en drøm i nat/_

_om silke og ærlig pæl./_

_Bar en dragt så let og glat/_

_i solfaldets strålevæld/_

_-nu vågner den kla~re mo~r~gen_.” ♪♬ 

 

His foot kept time with the beat. It made his heart swell, the flash of homesickness fluttering in between his ribs. 

He clamped down the memories, feeling farther away from home than ever before. He supposed that should suit since it was geographically true. 

The song was stuck in his head, even as he returned to work, mopping and piling coarse rope, and he tried not to hear the swing of a lantern, the wind cutting furrows through the wintered grass, or the crashing sea. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song reference: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LibgOC4RJVs)


	3. born and clothed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> brief Remus/Sirius snuggles, but really more set-up
> 
> SORRY FOR LATENESS!!!! I'm really still working on this. I have the ending finished but I'm editing and reworking some stuff I wasn't that happy with. I'm kind of experimenting with writing styles. (This has literally been on my desktop for years.)

_ Perhaps other souls than human are sometimes born into the world, and clothed in flesh. _

\- J. Sheridan Le Fanu, _Uncle Silas_

 

Dyre jumped ship at dawn. After slipping out the pin hinges of the cargo hold gate with a paring knife and animal fat, he slithered out onto the empty deck. 

For the first time, Dyre took in the expanse of Scottish landscape. Beyond the glimmering cap of lake, trees embroidered the slope surrounded by grey craggy mountains. Everything was swathed in greenery. It was wet and chilly, the surface of the water reflecting the bellbottom of swollen clouds. The castle peeked beyond the gully where they anchored. 

In the water-logged daylight, Hogwarts looked graver than it had in the dark with floating candles. Her grizzled, trim masonry and old blue roofing were hard-weathered. The steeples sharp, and forbidding. 

Dyre enjoyed the wind in his hair before he checked the security of his meager effects and dove into the water. 

The temperature was unkind full body impact. Water gulped him in and weightlessness took hold. A train of bubbles followed his descent as his hair whipped round. Ethereal jade hues. He kicked against nothing and treaded through ethereal hues of jade towards the wounded light. 

As he bobbed to the surface, the wind struck him and the lake suddenly became warmer in comparison. With a deep breath, he swam for shore.

At the bank, he caught a fistful of turf and hauled himself up, flopping onto the spongy sod.

Cold tickled inside his clothes. 

Gasping, he unearthed a packet from one of the furtive pockets and broke the seal. Instantly, the iron powder in the pack reacted to oxygen, releasing heat. Dyre adhered the sticking-charm side to his chest and began divesting himself of his muslin, adding two more packs high on the inside of his thighs. He wrung out the clothes and fitted them back on heavy with damp. His shoes, made of waxed rawhide with a soft inner lining of rabbit fur, were at least completely dry. 

At last, Dyre allowed himself a sharp, satisfied grin. 

These was alien territory compared with the Westfjords. The call of its newness was too inviting.

He’d managed to deposit himself opposite the castle. Many trees were tilted as if the earth had shoved up against them. The latticework of branches and brambles were impeded by the lounged juxtaposition of roots. A dark hungry green swallowed everything.

Light fanged. Shadows netted. Dyre stepped inside, catching a spiderweb on his thigh. The chopping lake and wind’s howl gave way to groaning timber. A flutter of feather and the wet flapping of Dyre’s coat.

 

.o0o.

 

Remus’ shadow loomed inside the room. He closed the door, and darkness swallowed the edges of his silhouette. The figure on the bed lie down on his stomach. The oblique glow of a old muggle halogen lamp in the alley made a base outline of legs. His upper half was nothing but shades. 

Traffic on the thoroughfare was hushed at this hour, and Remus made no sound as he found the man’s neck.

A sleepy exhale at the press of his cold fingers. Weight shifted. The body turned towards him.

Remus moved hair out of Sirius’ face. Bed-warm fingers sought his upper arm. Hip laid on thigh. Remus breathed in the scent of his drowsiness.

“Hey,” Sirius said, voice gummed. His eyes were slits and his hand drew a nonsensical design.

“Hey,” Remus said. 

Sirius blinked, laid back, and made himself a little more awake. “You’re late.”

Remus had already changed into sleepwear and forced Sirius over by implementation of a bony hip. His partner shuffled over with a grumble, but once Remus was ensorcelled in the warmth of his latent body heat, Sirius turned over and wrapped around him, sneaking hands and toes up his pajamas with a certain octopus-cling.

“You’re always late lately,” Sirius said around a yawn. 

“Work,” Remus hushed. 

Sirius made a Duh sort-of grunt. Despite the close, relaxing position, Remus felt his alertness, no longer on the edge of sleep. Sirius’ ear laid over his heart. 

Without warning, Sirius sat up. The covers gave him a shell, and he was dark, hair spilling mad to either side of his face. Remus felt his expression through the rest of his body straddling him, contemplative and grave. 

“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Remus said honestly. 

Remus wouldn’t give him details on any of his cases, but he wouldn’t lie and he wouldn’t prevaricate. 

These last few months, there had been in inexplicable increase in reports of domestic violence and suicide. Mothers had been found incoherent in their children’s rooms. In some cases, they were crying and unresponsive. In other cases, they brought cold apathy. Remus’ superiors were treating them as isolated incidences - there was nothing to connect them that they’d found - but the numbers were too coincidental. All of the witches were checked for curses, treated as best they could, but not only did the charms yield nothing, none of the women had come out of their alternative states except for a few cases where they tried to kill themselves. 

Yaxley was convinced they were looking for a serial curser. The office was pulling from all departments. Last week, Remus was told to ignore his open trafficking cases. No one wanted to let out to the media that they were dealing with something that was increasingly likely to be a magical pandemic. 

He couldn’t help but think that whatever this was, it was effecting the creature communities in the city as well. Increased sightings of hags and other death-dealing beings. Not just the investigators but the patrollers were being overworked accounting for the increased body-snatching and grave-carnage. It’s as if the entire Dark community just decided to erupt for no reason. 

Though of course there was a reason. Remus had been an auror for nearly fifteen years and an Inspector for nine. Some degenerate’s reason for causing violence and grief could be as simple as _I wanted to_ , but it was there. Yaxley thought someone was doing this while Remus was more inclined to think it was some _thing_. 

Sirius watched his face, taking clues from his microexpressions. 

Sirius took his face between his hands. “Don’t burn yourself out. Let me help. I might be in _athletics_ ,” I said in what he must imagine to be a coworker’s condescending lilt, “but I’m not completely useless.”

Remus rolled them. Sirius tussled half-heartedly before allowing himself to be laid on his back, barking when they landed on his hair. Remus moved them. Sirius was broader in the shoulders and more toned than his supernatural husband, who relished being thin as a reed and twice as strong. 

The half-light fell on Sirius’ face, illuminating the stubborn, defiant tilt of his jaw. Remus decided to nibble on it, feeling the scrape of a day’s growth of whiskers. 

“I know,” he assured. “Maybe. Let me think about it.”

Sirius finally submitted with a growl. “You had better.” 

Remus meant it. He’d think about it.

Sirius was wickedly clever when he wanted and had access to resources, as the last scion of the Black house, that not even the Ministry could boast, but Remus also had to balance his professionalism, and how involved he wanted his husband to be in his cases. He usually didn’t consider it. A break in procedure could throw out a case and he didn’t marry Sirius to have access to his family’s notorious library. 

But if it wasn’t a person, or a group, if it was... some sort of magical disease, Sirius may know the best way to identify it and stop it. 

Remus decided he didn’t want to think about this anymore. He’d had a fifty-eight hour shift and only six hours left until he needed to be back at his desk. It was one advantage of being a werewolf that he didn’t need as much sleep as his coworkers. 

His nose wandered down Sirius’ neck, relishing the thrill of anticipation that turned his husband’s body instantly from languid to electric, and as always profoundly amazed that it was his to enjoy at all. 

“Moons,” Sirius pleaded, the brat, turning his head in that way that exposed his throat, that he knew charmed the hell out of Remus. All along the rest of him, his muscles stretched in Remus’ hold, testing what he thought he could get away with if he wanted. 

“Prick,” he chided and nipped when Sirius’ abdomen rippled with suppressed laughter.


	4. Tyger Tyger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dyre and Draco finally meet
> 
> Since the previous chapter was so short (and I waited so long to update previously!!!!), I decided to post this one after I got back from work.
> 
> (2018/03/18 edit)

 

_Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,_

_In the forests of the night;_

_What immortal hand or eye,_

_Could frame thy fearful symmetry?_

 

Draco could happily murder his godfather. 

The man stalked in front of him through the thick underbrush. Cold morning fog swallowed the forest. Sound rippled back oddly. And Draco used his imagination on all the nefarious things he knew he couldn’t get away with doing to the potion master’s body in this ghastly wood. 

“Keep up,” Uncle Sev snapped alongside the wet snap of a branch. 

Draco sneered and didn’t reply. 

He could be blissfully abed, or better yet, finding his way into someone else’s bed. He warmed himself on the thought, though it felt more like torture in this wretched weather. Uncle Sev’s black back dipped in and out of view, the guide light a small candle-glow flare combatting the whiteness and darkness of fog and timber. 

Somewhere, Draco thought he heard a bleat. 

They were searching out injured unicorns. The centaurs claimed they were missing a foal. Hagrid had taken the western region, leaving this small parch of land to Uncle Sev and his beleaguered godson.

“Uncle Sev?” he called out, trying to pinpoint the sound.

Severus did not respond. Draco heard the bleat again. 

Impatient, Draco’s disregarded his usual nighttime fear of the Forbidden Forest and left the line, trudging towards the young frightened sound. The forest was uncooperative. He pushed against branches and slipped on moss-covered roots. Tits of Morrian, his trousers and shoes would be ruined.

Gradually, the forest opened into a small clearing, dim under the canopy. Draco, a mess, hungry and irritated, looked for the foal. 

He found something else instead.

There was a figure crouched over the glowing white body. He couldn’t see clearly and took leave of his senses.

“Hey!”

The figure turned, revealing the foal. Barely half a year old, with a painful pink stub of a horn and soft dappled pelt. The figure had a hand protectively drawn over its neck and that more than anything slowed Draco’s strop.

He took in the figure. He was indeed sinister-looking, but younger than he first thought. There was a certain corvid ferocity to his face. In addition to his meager protection against the clime, his hair was hacked discordant. He had an ugly scar unevenly dividing his face, but his bone structure was _pretty_. 

He glared the way Draco had seen crows do before they swoop.

Draco raised his hands and took a instinctive step back with an crass yelping sound his father will certainly never hear about ever.

“You were- Er.” He studied the boy. “Can you... English?” he asked, hopeful.

Lord and Lady have mercy.

The foal mewled. 

The boy crouched lower, caressing the shivering thing.

Draco eyed the point of contact and swallowed.

“It’s sick,” he blurted, awkward and ungainly. _Not_ conditions he was used to. “We were, we were looking for it. It needs help.”

The boy’s gaze was impenetrable. Draco was beginning to feel like more and more like an intruder when t he unicorn made another pathetic bleat, tired and hungry.

With only a moment more indecision, the boy lifted the foal onto his shoulders like it was definitely not something that would ever cause Draco Malfoy's mouth to abruptly dry out. 

The boy strode off into the forest.

Right.

Well, fuck his godfather anyway.

Draco followed, much less adroit over the bramble. Draco felt the boy was letting him keep pace. He only realized belatedly, heat suffusing his face, that the boy was trying to get him to lead to the stables. Head ducked, Draco quietly pointed the way. 

Limbs and finicky thorn bushes bent out of his path in a way he’d only seen the forest do for Sev. 

Finally the forest dropped them onto the engraved cartsway to Hogsmeade. Draco scrabbled down the grooved wall, liberal with the charm to keep the grass and sod off his robes. The boy hopped down with great care to distribute his balance and not upset the foal. Draco stared some more before biting his tongue.

The stables were constructed against the castles old quarry. Unused for years at a time, it had actually been Draco who'd been lent out by his parents to clean up the mold, dust out the cobwebs, and do the repairs after his latest infraction at home. Though really, he'd only apparated a little. He hadn't even splinched himself. They had completely overreacted. 

The stable smelled like lemon, lavender, and comfrey. The sick foals bunked with their mothers. Unicorns unwilling to leave the little ones loitered around the field. They watched their approach, their tails swishing warningly, ears pricked. 

The foal bleated and kicked up a fuss in proximity to his herd. An elder unicorn broke off to meet them. 

The boy padded through knee-high grass, speaking a lilting language Draco didn't recognize. The foal touched noses with the matron, trying and failing to squirm out of the boy's hold. That tiny tail gave a flicker before it was drained entirely of excitement, resorting to the same pained, lost mewling Draco had heard in the forest.

The unicorn's horn rose above the boy's shoulder like a pearly sword. Draco's breath was caught in his chest, unsure what he was meant to be doing. 

The unicorn allowed the boy into the stable. Draco remained outside. 

He could hear his heart thudding, loud and intrusive. 

The hell...

The boy marched back out. Draco watched him but the boy didn't look at him again. He stood there, as if waiting, for what Draco could not _begin_ to guess. Then, the boy returned to the forest.

There and gone.

Draco released his breath. 

Well. 

Alright.

 

_When the stars threw down their spears_

_And watered heaven with their tears_

_Did He smile his work to see?_

_Did He who made the lamb make thee?_

 

_~ "The Tyger"_ by William Blake


End file.
